HOUSTON — Afterward, the Vikings’ locker room was the happiest place this side of the North Pole. There was a lot of “hooting and hollering,” as Les Frazier described it.

“Who did you pick this week? That’s what I want to know,” linebacker Chad Greenway asked in his loudest, meanest voice. “Well, who did you pick?”

Uhhh, I picked the Texans to win.

“Exactly!”

Who did you pick, Chad?

“I picked the Vikings!”

Of course, he’s picked the Vikings every week since he joined the team six years ago. That gives him a .500 record as a prognosticator, as the team has gone 49-49 over that span. That makes him ultimately mediocre at predicting.

He was right this time, though. But who knew that the Vikings were going to deliver one of their more dominating defensive performances in recent years? They held the Texans to 187 yards, just 34 rushing. More important, they stymied Houston on third down. The Texans were 1 for 11 on third-down conversions.

“Wow, that’s ugly,” cornerback Antoine Winfield said of that stat.

“That was probably one of the best defensive efforts I’ve been around,” Greenway said. “This type of opponent, on the road, to be able to play this way was pretty fun for us.”

Meanwhile, they are not happy down here in the great state of Texas. It is unacceptable to allow these Nawthenuhs — these Vikings — to come in and push their guys around. The fans were booing the home team by game’s end. What was most galling was that the Texans did a good job of containing Adrian Peterson — the one dimension of the one-dimensional Vikings offense. And they still lost.

That’s like dodging a runaway freight train only to get run over by a moped.

“I thought our defense had us in a game where we should put some points up and have a chance to win,” Houston coach Gary Kubiak said.

Tough loss, hoss. But those points were tough to come by.

It wasn’t a washout for Peterson in his Texas homecoming. He rushed for 86 yards, which is considered very good for most backs. And he spent so much time in the hotel lobby signing so many things for so many people that I considered slipping in there with my bar bill.

But the Vikings defense was splendid. When the offense gets booed at home, it’s usually because the defense is doing a good job.

Hey, bring on those Packers. Grrrrrr.

“To have a turnaround from three and 13 to having a chance that we might go to the playoffs is phenomenal,” defensive end Jared Allen said. “Obviously, you start thinking about some games that slipped away to where we could have a little better position. But I’m just happy the way we’re playing football right now. This is the way football is supposed to be played.”

“There are going to be a lot of story lines built around that game,” center John Sullivan said. “We have to narrow our focus, as players, on the Green Bay Packers and find a way to win that game.”

Another defensive effort like this one wouldn’t hurt.

The game started as if it would be a disaster for Minnesota. Matt Schaub completed three straight passes. On his fourth attempt, after much trickery had 10 of the 11 Vikings defenders moving in the wrong direction, he had plenty of time to try to hit DeVier Posey. But that 11th defender, cornerback Chris Cook, saw what was coming and successfully defended the pass.

“I saw that heavy run action over there and the receiver went vertical, and I kind of knew what was going on because they like to run a lot of bootlegs and misdirections,” Cook said.

Wait, slow down.

“I studied a lot of film,” Cook explained. “I was expecting that route.”

Got it. Anyway, the Texans’ offense never again moved the ball with ease as the Vikings defense established a toehold. Now the Vikings are pumped up for their archenemies at the Metrodome next week.

“We need one more ticket,” offensive tackle Matt Kalil said. “We needed three tickets to win, and now we need one more, and who better to play than Green Bay at home? It’s going to be an electric atmosphere, and I’m pretty excited for that game.”

The Packers aren’t any better than the Texans. Now, did Minnesota get Houston’s best? If not, was that because the Texans were having an off day or because the Vikings made them have an off day? That’s the question. I guess we are about to find out in Game 16.

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